


starman, spacegirl (bowie on the moon)

by Thegaygumballmachine



Category: For All Mankind (TV 2019), Madam Secretary
Genre: ASTRONAUT BABIES!!!, F/M, Henry Pov, Oops?, my attempt at hard sf, slightly OOC but it’s accurate to the period, tumblr ficlet turned giant outline, which is to say romance that has been ridiculously researched
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-12 21:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21483160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thegaygumballmachine/pseuds/Thegaygumballmachine
Summary: The press calls them Nixon’s Women.
Relationships: Elizabeth McCord/Henry McCord
Comments: 20
Kudos: 25





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laineyvb131](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laineyvb131/gifts).

> For context, For All Mankind (which I reference in the original prompt) is about what would happen if Russia got to the moon first and sent a woman, so the US would then be scrambling to find a qualified woman to get up there too. ;)
> 
> If any of my science is off I am terribly sorry, but at least I didn’t put SONAR in space like doctor who did that one time.

_ Current Date: August 4, 1969 _

_ 167 days to liftoff _

The press calls them Nixon’s Women. 

Twenty girls from across the US, pilots and engineers, some who flew Mercury. They’re all accomplished and he watched the program with tunnel vision as it happened, followed the list of cuts the same way half of NASA did: obsessively, and with apprehension. 

Henry’s been hoping for Molly Cobb, but Elizabeth Adams makes the grade for Apollo 13. She’s blonde and tan and her smile lights up a photo, but she’s new to the game and doesn’t know the culture like Molly would have.   
  


(Or that’s what Gordon thinks, anyway.)

He runs into her for the first time in the little kitchen they‘re afforded, situated between Von Braun’s office and the second briefing room. It’s barely a closet with a microwave and countertops but it’s the best their budget allows, and she’s already doctoring her coffee when he comes in, administering two teaspoons of sugar with utmost precision. 

“You like it sweeter, huh?”

She barely glances up and he joins her carefully, shaking a new filter out and consciously avoiding her eyes. 

“What can I say,” she says. “I can’t stand bitter. Sticks with me all day.”

“I’m a purist,” he says. “Can’t beat a quality black coffee, if you ask me.”

This draws her attention — she meets his eye and laughs, low and full, and it makes her cheeks glow just a bit. 

“I didn’t ask you,” she says. “But hi. I’m Elizabeth.”

“I know who you are,” he says. “Impressive work. Can I call you Liz?”

He extends a hand and she takes it, the sharpness of her grip a surprise to him despite knowing full well what he was getting into. She’s beautiful, they were right about that: there’s something in her eyes he can’t seem to tear himself away from, a passion and drive he’s never met before in anyone. 

“No, sir,” she smirks, “you absolutely may not.”

It hits him after three beats that she’s waiting for something, and he shakes his head, returns the smile with as much grace as he can manage. She tilts her head and he follows the line of her neck, lands on the wings at her collar. 

“Henry. Uh, Major McCord.”

“I know,” she says. “Tell me, Major Henry McCord… just how much do you hate me?” 

“What?”

She stirs in a splash of milk and grins up at him, an easygoing look he can’t place to the question. He wonders if she’s playing him somehow, but then she adds cinnamon from her own pocket and he starts thinking maybe she’s just crazy. 

“I just stole your friend’s spot,” she says, lightly and without pause. “There’s gotta be some kind of resentment. Come on, let’s have it, I can take it.”

He sees the appeal of tearing into her over it. He doesn’t doubt anyone in his position would agree, but when he steps back and looks at the problem, she only represents its face. This does come from Nixon down and her only fault in it is that she’s a damn good pilot.

“No,” he says. “I don’t hate you. It’s just a big change this close to launch.”

“Good.”

She takes her first sip and a look of sheer rapture steals over her, eyes falling closed as she holds it in her mouth. He waits on his own cup to finish brewing and tries valiantly not to look, focusing on the wall ahead. 

“Because, Major,” she says, “if there were any resentment between us, I’d want to get it out of the way _ right now _so I can do my job.”

He sees it again, then — that fierce darkness in her eyes, the yearning he feels in himself to go beyond what anyone else has ever done. They connect that way, and, if he were to judge it, he expects them to work seamlessly together. 

“Nothing to talk about, Doctor,” he says. “I like you just fine.”

  
  


_ Current Date: September 16, 1969 _

_ 124 days to liftoff _

He takes her out to drink on their first successful landing sim. He orders a beer and she a manhattan, and they throw some darts over the first round, just to get comfortable. 

(She’s great at that, too: she’s beating him handily, but he’s getting used to that.)

“How long have you wanted to fly?” he asks. She swirls the ice in her glass as she considers the question, gestures with it to the small television in the corner of the room. 

“Since I was little. The second I saw that plane on Charlie Brown, I was done for. Couldn’t for awhile, though, so I got a degree instead.”

There’s a bitter note there but he doesn’t settle on it, focusing instead on lining up his shot. Not quite the bullseye but close enough to count. 

“Math, right?”

“Uh huh. Let me tell you, Major, even the nerds hate calculus.”

That draws a chuckle out of both of them. She’s staring idly at his hands when he looks up, and she makes quick work of pretending she isn’t.

“What about you?”

She turns her dart over between her fingers like a pencil and he watches the way the dim light hits her hair, bringing out quiet notes of gold.

“My dad flew a Curtiss P-40 in two,” he says. “Took me up a couple times.”

Lesley Gore comes on the radio and she taps along, takes stock of the way he looks saying it. Her eyes have a way of piercing him through, but he holds her gaze somewhere adjacent to defiance. She signals another round and the crowd shifts around them, a group of college kids setting up to play pool in the corner. 

“My brother loved it,” she says, quietly. “Calc, I mean. He used to work FIDO. I got through grad school on Apollo operation manuals.”

“That’s… really illegal,” says Henry. He shakes his head into another drink, holds back a huff of laughter until it’s gone. 

“Yeah, well. You’ll be thanking me in a few months.”

Her dart goes square in the middle, and he doesn’t doubt it for a second. 

  
  


_ Current Date: November 22, 1969 _

_ 52 days to liftoff _

“Here we go. LM standing by.”

They’re doing malfunction procedure today. Manual readouts only and the engine’s slow. They never tell him what’s going to happen before it does, and he doesn’t think she knows either, but she looks like she does: every part of her is collected, her breath level and her face clean of sweat. 

Her concentration is tight, and he sees the understanding in the way she moves — she’s fluid with the console like most of the guys only are after years of drills like this. 

“Six degrees,” she says. “Looks steady to me, how’s our speed?”

“Could be slower.”

“Copy.”

He immerses himself in his own work, constant checks and systems to run, and wonders at the stress of doing this for real, hovering over a barren rock with a second’s margin for error.

“Aquarius, Houston. You’re go for DOI. Watch your angle.”

“Wilco, Houston. Firing on my mark.”

He chances a look and she’s got her hand on the switch, ready for his call.

“Mark.”

The switch turns and they’re free. She makes her checks and he starts on the descent, settling into the chaos. 

“Seven degrees,” she says. “Check your pitch.”

“Copy.”

He was right, back then. They’re seamless. Mistakes are rare and fatal ones are rarer still. She’s comfortable and calm in the craft and a consummate professional to boot. 

He’s starting to think she might even be better than Matt when they land, smoother than he ever could’ve pulled it off. There’s the barest hint of relief in her eyes, a lack of tension between the brows, and she’s human then, real to him. 

“Nice work, Bess,” says Russell Jackson, and she smiles though he can’t see it, nitpicks herself until they’re half out of the room. 

“Grab a drink with me,” she says, once the heat is off and they’re back in plainclothes. “I’ll pay.”

“I don’t know, I might be busy.”

“What would make you… not busy?”

Her hair’s coming out of her ponytail as she reaches to lace up her sneakers, and he doesn’t look away this time, faces up the feeling of what it’s like to watch her move. 

“That depends,” he says. She’s smiling like she already knows, and he wonders how obvious he’s been, how many people have gotten here before he has. 

“On what?”

“On whether you’re hitting on me.”

Sinatra comes on a room or so away. He blinks and she’s in his personal space, close enough to touch. Her breath meets his lips and he’s lost in all of it, her forward manner shocking him into inaction as she takes hold of his forearm, leaning in close to speak right into his ear.

“Find out tonight, Major,” she says. “Seven sharp. I’ll be playing pool.”

  
  


_ Current Date: December 13, 1969 _

_ 31 days to liftoff _

“Henry,” she whispers, “we can’t do this.”

“Sure we can.”

Her neck is warm and sweet with some perfume he can’t place and her actions bely her words as she presses herself into his touch, breath shaking with the force of her restraint. 

Elizabeth the dynamo, he thinks. The star pilot with the glint in her eye and a whole lifetime of worth to prove. 

The American girl on the moon.

“We’re going up in a tin can thirty days from tomorrow. _ We can’t do this. _”

He catches her train of thought and follows it to its end: _ if one of us dies up there, I don’t want to be this attached to you. _

“Think it through,” he says. “Either we both live or we both die. Whatever happens, this won’t change that.”

He watches the gears turning in her head and then she cups his neck and kisses him hard, full and deep with everything she’s got.

“Once,” she says, breathless and pink. “Just this once.”

Looking at her now, the way she is in a joy she can’t temper, he isn’t sure either of them can do that.

Still, for her sake, he nods along, taking her in his arms as she giggles into the dip of his neck. 

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shamefully shuffles into frame* ....hi. merry christmas?
> 
> i know its been like.... sixty years. my bad. sorry about that. i forgot this story existed and also lost my will to live for awhile but anyways it's back now and i know how many of u have been BEGGING me to continue it so this is for u.... but especially for lainey bc she begged the loudest
> 
> the for all mankind influence is sort of tapering off now but im tryina keep some of it in mind. not really following the plot of the show past the premise at all. completely unedited. any mistakes and stupid plot points and scientific inaccuracies belong solely to me. LIZ POV NOW YAY

“Good evening, I’m Blake Moran and you’re watching CNN. It’s seven thirty-two now in southern California, and we’re just five days away from the long-awaited Apollo 13 launch. I’m here with two thirds of the mission’s flight crew — Elizabeth Adams and Henry McCord— to answer your burning questions.”

They’re sitting across from him on a pale green sofa, in uniform for the aesthetics of it. Elizabeth is only here because Blake’s been a friend since she can remember and Henry’s only here because she wrestled him into it under what could be classified as extreme duress. He’s fidgeting, avoiding the cameras, staring at the plexiglass that separates them from the twenty-six person crew that makes this show work live. 

It’s kind of like NASA; smaller and more narcissistic, but still this hulking metal machine that Elizabeth can only barely make sense of at the best of times. They tried to take her goddamn hair down. Said her mascara wasn’t enough as if she hasn’t sat a thousand nights at seedy bars and seen up close just how tiny and grainy most televisions still are these days. The world doesn’t need to see her eyelashes in glorious technicolor.

Anyway.

“Elizabeth,” says Blake, with consummate professionalism. It’s like they don’t know each other at all, save for how animated he was five minutes ago. “Tell us what it feels like to be the first American woman to fly on an Apollo mission.”

“There’s really nothing new about it,” she says. “Or there shouldn’t be, anyway. I’ve got the same qualifications, but I’m also blonde with an e and my suit fits a little different and that makes everything harder with you guys for some reason. An astronaut is an astronaut, wouldn’t you say that’s so?”

“Touché,” says Blake, and grins.

It goes on from there. Henry gets the occasional question, but really all eyes are on her, and it’s probably better that way for both of them. He can fidget without anyone noticing and she can lobby second wave feminism to the United States at large for forty-five minutes.

She knows they wanted her for the apple pie image. They wanted an all-American Rosie the Riveter girl to get up there and make anti-communist propaganda from the lunar surface. She knows that, has known that, works it just enough to satisfy the higher ups. When Blake asks personal questions, she talks about horses and Virginia winters and lets them make of that what they want to.

It’s like chess. She sees the numbers in the air, almost.

\----

“I wanted to be a teacher,” he tells her. 

Their night at the bar has become a weekly affair. She throws darts, he watches the TV and mopes about the state of the world over a beer. She notices new things about him every time: the barest touch of salt and pepper in his hair, the way his throat works when he talks. She never explicitly thinks of him as attractive, but there’s just so much there. 

“You’d be good at that,” she says, casually. “You sure as hell lecture me often enough.”

He laughs, caught, and comes around the table. Elvis is on tonight and that gets to both of them in different ways. He sips his beer and watches her hit a bullseye, then says:

“I got halfway through a degree in theology. Really interesting stuff, actually. You can tell a lot about a person, about society in general, based on what they believe in and how they justify it."

“But you couldn’t sit still long enough,” Elizabeth guesses. It’s a statement and she’s right, knows it from everything else she knows about him. At times she thinks of him like a half formed jigsaw, just waiting for her to ferret out the rest of the pieces. 

It’s quiet for awhile, but comfortable - Elvis and the low murmur of the bar on a weeknight. They’re enjoying one another and that’s enough. Elizabeth prefers the undefined space anyway, but she can tell he can’t stand it.

“Listen,” he says, quietly. “I know you don’t want to talk about this.”   
  
“You’re right, Major, I don’t.”

“I know that, and I understand why, but we have to at some point.”

She looks at him:  _ really  _ looks, and she hopes it’s true what they say about blue eyes being able to see into a person’s soul. 

“After,” she says.

“Okay,” he says, and she gets the distinct sense that it’s just to humor her but she really isn’t bothered by that.

\-----

It’s T-minus 30 and it only really occurs to her now to be scared.

This has all been theoretical until this exact second. They’ve been training and working and learning the systems for months, but that’s all it’s been - practice, and she’d halfway put the end goal out of her mind. There are so many ways she could die today, and they all start to become possible in thirty minutes. Infinite probabilities, statistics she refused to look at but can easily imagine. How many times have people put themselves in tin cans and tried to go to space? How many times have they succeeded?

“Hey,” says Henry, and takes her hand. It’s a muffled sensation, as if she’s wearing gloves, but she isn’t yet and won’t be for awhile. “Breathe with me.”

“Fuck you,” she says, tersely. It comes out wheezing and he smiles, thumbs over her knuckles. She can’t quite sort out how she feels about him even now, even like this. He made her pillows smell like pine for awhile, even though they only did that once and she didn’t let him stay the night.

“You know how to do this, Elizabeth. You know how to do this better than anyone I’ve ever met.”

Nadine Tolliver comes on the radio, chasing order around the control room. Elizabeth pretends to understand the words but it all sounds like gibberish right now, like she’s underwater.

_ Breathe with me. _

“I’m fine,” she says. “I’m gonna be fine.”

“I know,” says Henry. “Whatever happens, I’m with you.”

The truth of it hits her right in the gut and it’s a wonder she doesn’t vomit.

\----

“FIDO.”

“Go.”

“Guidance.”

“Go.”

“CAPCOM.”

“Go.”

\----

_ December, 1959. _

_ Her graduation gift to herself is a cherry red T-Bird she fixed up in auto shop, spent months restoring. Most of her friends don’t recognize her unless she has grease stains on her clothes and in her hair. She smokes, a little. Not enough to make her sound like the popular girls’ moms, but a little. Less on the weekends, more when she thinks about her dad. _

_ She drives to the junkyard outside of town at sunset. Spreads a jean jacket out on the front of the car and just sits there, smoking and chewing gum and staring at the stars. She learned constellation names from Benjamin’s books and looks for them when she can, when the sky is clear enough. It feels like she can reach out and touch him, some days. _

_ She wonders how the moon feels. _

\----

They’re on the ground and then they aren’t anymore.

She can feel it physically - her connection to the earth shatters and snaps and she becomes a celestial thing, a creature she can’t recognize. Color bleeds around her, sound pitches up and up and up and -

All of them lose consciousness for different amounts of time, and she’s out the longest. That’s alright; she has nothing to do until they get there, anyhow, and she can’t stress if she’s not awake. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.

When she comes to she’s not dead and that’s all that matters for awhile, really, but then she gets to looking around. To remembering where she is, what she’s doing. She undoes her restraints, glances at Henry and goes to the nearest window.

The earth stretches out below her, this unstoppable force. She thinks of Persephone and Zeus and orbit calculations. It threatens to swallow her, all that blue, and suddenly she’s just so calm.

“Elizabeth,” says Nadine Tolliver’s voice, tinny and distorted. “Would you like to say something?”

“To who?”

“To the world. This is live everywhere.”

She looks down, out the window: everyone down there is looking at her right now, and she can see them all, can make out the shapes of cities if she tries.

  
“I had something fancy planned,” says Elizabeth, “about how lucky and privileged I am and how important this is, but I’m sitting here and looking at Europe from sixty miles up and, I mean… all I can think is  _ this is just so cool. _ ”


End file.
